 "Claudia Cardinale was more than an actress. She was a force, a muse, a myth. Image: Reuters")
Legendary Italian actress Claudia Cardinale passed away on Tuesday at the age of 87, leaving behind a timeless legacy that will continue to inspire generations. Her death marks the end of an era, one where auteurs defined cinema and actors like Cardinale embodied characters so fully that they became myths themselves.
You cannot become Fellini’s muse unless you are as magnetic as Claudia Cardinale. She was one of the last great icons of auteur-driven cinema of the 1960s. The Tunisian-born Italian giant, who made France her adopted home, during her illustrious acting career starred in some of cinema’s greatest masterworks: Federico Fellini’s 8½, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, and Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, among many others. Each performance was a statement: sensuous yet intelligent, bold yet enigmatic, accessible yet impossible to fully grasp.
It all started with her dancing on the rooftop at the Cannes Film Festival, when she was still a complete unknown. There was something prophetic about that moment—unselfconscious joy captured against the Riviera sky. Many years later, the same image was chosen as the official poster for the festival’s 70th edition, a testament to the timelessness of her aura. For Cardinale, the rooftop dance was not merely a publicity stunt; it was the beginning of an odyssey that would take her into the most hallowed temples of world cinema.
If Fellini’s semi-autobiographical masterpiece 8½ is a film about artistic paralysis and the search for inspiration, then Cardinale’s presence in it is the antidote. As “Claudia”, the enigmatic muse of Guido (immortalised by the legendary Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni), she is luminous, detached, and oddly reassuring. Her character doesn’t simply inspire Guido; she validates his artistic vision, embodying the ideal of woman as mystery and salvation. Cardinale plays it with subtle restraint—never indulgent, always poised—demonstrating why Fellini trusted her with such an abstract, almost metaphysical part.
From Fellini’s dreamscapes to Visconti’s historical realism, Cardinale moved with astonishing versatility. In The Leopard she starred alongside Hollywood giant Burt Lancaster and French heartthrob Alain Delon, with whom she had already shared screen space in another of Visconti’s masterworks, Rocco and His Brothers. As Angelica Sedara, she personifies the energy of a new class rising in 19th-century Sicily. Her famous waltz scene with Lancaster is as much about social change as it is about beauty and grace, and Cardinale plays it with both sensuality and cunning, aware that her character is as much a strategist as she is a romantic heroine.
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More ShortsIn Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, Cardinale perhaps plays her most complex part—that of the widowed Jill McBain. Leone’s films are typically about masculine gunslingers, but here he entrusted Cardinale with his greatest female character. She carries the emotional weight of the film, her resilience and vulnerability redefining the Western archetype.
The buggy ride she takes from the railway station to the McBain farm, passing through the sprawling vistas of John Ford’s beloved Monument Valley, remains one of cinema’s most legendary moments. The camera lingers on her face, Monument Valley unfurling behind her, with no dialogue—just the landscape, the woman, and the destiny ahead of her. It is pure visual poetry. Later, her scenes with Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and most memorably Henry Fonda—playing against type as a villain for the first time in his storied career—cemented Cardinale’s place as the emotional anchor of Leone’s magnum opus.
Few actresses could match the wild, almost operatic energy of Klaus Kinski, but Cardinale did so with ease in Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. Shot in the heart of the Amazon Basin, the film was a test of endurance as much as art, yet Cardinale’s chemistry with Kinski added both tenderness and gravity to Herzog’s mad vision of dragging a steamboat over a mountain. Once again, she was not just an actress in a film—she was a myth woven into the fabric of cinematic history.
Her career was not confined to these towering works. Cardinale brought her magnetism to comedies and commercial films as well. She held her own opposite Peter Sellers and David Niven in Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther, broadening her global appeal. She sparred with Jean-Paul Belmondo in Cartouche, adding sparkle to the swashbuckling adventure. Her collaborations with Alain Delon in Rocco and His Brothers and other titles solidified her reputation as an actress who could shift gears seamlessly—from tragic realism to light-hearted mischief—without losing her gravitas.
In later decades, as the era of auteurs waned, she continued to work steadily, appearing in a mix of European art films, Italian comedies, and international co-productions. While not every project matched the heights of her 1960s peak, she never treated any role casually. Even in lighter or more commercial ventures, Cardinale carried herself with dignity, reminding audiences that once a muse, always a muse.
Claudia Cardinale was born in La Goulette, Tunisia, to Sicilian parents in 1938. Her multicultural upbringing gave her a cosmopolitan identity that later enriched her screen presence. Winning a beauty contest led her to Italy, where she enrolled at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, and before long she was working with the most celebrated directors of her time.
Her personal life was not without hardship. She became a mother as a teenager under traumatic circumstances, initially presenting her son Patrick as her brother to avoid scandal in conservative post-war Italy. Later, her long relationship with producer Franco Cristaldi brought both opportunities and complications, as industry politics sometimes limited her choices. Yet through it all, she remained resilient, carving out a career that spanned more than six decades.
Cardinale died peacefully in Nemours, France, at the age of 87. In recent years she had withdrawn from public life, especially after health issues, but her stature never diminished. For cinephiles, each sighting of her in later years was a reminder of a golden age, a living link to Fellini, Visconti, Leone, Herzog, and countless others.
Claudia Cardinale was more than an actress. She was a force, a muse, a myth. She could be the enigma in a dream, the embodiment of social change in a historical epic, or the soul of a mad adventure in the Amazon. She danced on rooftops, rode through Monument Valley, and waltzed through the palaces of Sicily—always magnetic, always unforgettable.
Her death truly marks the end of an era. But the images remain: Claudia on the rooftop at Cannes, Claudia as Guido’s muse, Claudia in Angelica’s gown, Claudia against the desert sky, and Claudia with Kinski in the South American wilderness. These are not just film scenes; they are pieces of cinema history.
Generations to come will watch her films and understand what it meant to be a star in the truest sense: not a celebrity, but an artist who carried within her the mystery, beauty, and defiance of life itself.
May Claudia Cardinale rest in peace, forever part of the dreamscape of cinema.
The author is an Indian critic and journalist who has been covering cinema, art and culture for the last decade and a half. He has served on the jury of various film festivals, including the National Film Awards. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.